Question 1

How much does the average European meeting cost?

Accepted Answer

A one-hour meeting with 8 people on the EU average full-time adjusted salary (~€40K, Eurostat 2024) costs roughly €170 in direct labour. At €75K per person — typical for a mid-size tech team in Berlin, Amsterdam or Dublin — the same meeting costs about €316. Multiply that by weekly recurrence and a single recurring meeting runs comfortably past €15K a year.

Question 2

How is the meeting cost calculated?

Accepted Answer

Each attendee's annual salary is converted to an hourly rate (salary ÷ 1,900 working hours per year for the EU average), then multiplied by the number of attendees and the meeting length. For example: 6 people × €39.47/hour × 1 hour = €237. This is direct labour cost only; the true cost including preparation and context-switching is typically 2–3× higher.

Question 3

Why 1,900 hours a year?

Accepted Answer

EU member states set some of the most generous statutory leave in the world — typically 4–6 weeks paid annual leave plus 8–14 public holidays, under the EU Working Time Directive's 48-hour weekly cap. Once that's removed, full-time workers across the EU average around 1,900 productive hours per year. Using the EU figure gives a more honest per-hour cost than the US default of 2,080.

Question 4

How can I reduce meeting costs?

Accepted Answer

The highest-leverage moves are: only invite people who genuinely need to be there, default to 25 or 50 minutes instead of 30 or 60, require a written agenda before any meeting is booked, and move status updates to async (Loom, Slack, shared docs). Teams spread across EU time zones often find async-first working actually widens the collaboration window rather than shrinking it.

Question 5

Is this tool free to use?

Accepted Answer

Yes — completely free, no sign-up, no account. TimeIsMoney.tools is supported by minimal, non-intrusive advertising. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

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